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Notes
Quine (1948, p. 23) was prepared to give the word “exists” to philosophers who wanted to distinguish claims about what there is from claims about what exists. I am for stylistic reasons unwilling to be so generous. So when I talk about a particular thing’s existing I always have in mind the claim that there is something identical to that thing. Likewise, when I speak generically, saying, “F’s exist”, I always have in mind the claim that there are some F’s.
The metaphorical expression “no addition to being” is borrowed from Armstrong (1997, p. 12).
I am assuming throughout that what Quine (1948) called the ontological question, “what is there?” is both meaningful and univocal, and that radicalism and liberalism provide competing partial answers to that question. No choice between radicalism and liberalism will be necessary if this assumption fails.
When I use the term “feature”, I have in mind qualitative properties and relations. Following the standard terminology, a qualitative property or relation is one which can be adequately specified without reference to any particular individual.
My use of “explain” and its cognates is artificially narrow. In every case, I have in mind the relation targeted by “in virtue of.” Ethicists may tell us what it is in virtue of which murder is wrong; epistemologists may tell us what it is in virtue of which we are entitled to rely on our senses; and scientists may tell us what it is in virtue of which iron is a good conductor. In each case, we have been given an explanation. Thus, when I talk about “what explains P” or “an explanation of P,” I have in mind the facts in virtue of which P is the case. I will use “because” in the same artificially narrow way. You should read “because” as a stand in for “in virtue of the fact that”.
Schaffer (Schaffer, forthcoming) has suggested that the fundamental idea for priority theorists is not explanation but grounding. We explain facts by reference to other facts, but, by Schaffer’s lights, grounding may obtain between items of any category, including objects, facts, and properties. Schaffer, however, concedes the claim that grounding requires explanation: the existence and features of the entities that ground an individual completely explain its existence and non-relational features (private correspondence). The determination argument of Sect. 3 thus applies.
Priority theory is neutral on whether the fundamental entities are concrete, so the existence and features of even the most fundamental concrete entities might themselves be explicable solely by reference to other things, e.g., tropes, properties, or the mind of God. For ease of exposition, I assume that some concrete objects are fundamental, but the arguments of this paper do not rely on this assumption.
One striking feature of priority theory that is not represented in my exposition is that it has been developed in the pursuit of Armstrong-style truth-maker metaphysics. Here I assume that truth-making incurs an explanatory commitment. I also put the view in the material mode, as a view about what explains certain facts, rather than a view about what makes certain truths concerning those facts true. In this, I follow Lewis (2001).
What I am calling a reduction of one claim to another involves the identification of the facts reported by those claims; and a reduction of one fact to another involves the identification of those facts. No particular epistemological status is indicated, since an identity that undergirds a reduction, like many other identities, may not be a priori. A hallmark of reduction is necessary equivalence: if one claim is reducible to another, then, as a matter of necessity, they have the same truth value; and if one fact is reducible to another, then “they” obtain at exactly the same possible worlds. By way of contrast, explanation does not require necessary equivalence; it does require (see Sect. 5 below) that the explanans be modally sufficient for the explanandum, but it does not require the converse.
See Melia (2005, p. 76) who explicitly draws a contrast between explanation and reduction.
All priority theories hold that the relevant kind of explanatory priority is a partial ordering with minimal elements, so there are some fundamental facts. This assumption is explicit in (Schaffer 2010).
Strictly speaking, the microphysical entities in question needn’t be particles: they could instead be fields, wave functions, vibrating strings, or something even more exotic. I’m just using “particle” as a stand-in for whatever microphysical entity kind is taken as fundamental.
This line of reasoning is cited as a key argument for the two radical views sketched below in Schaffer (2007). Schaffer traces this style of argument to Kim (1993), where it concerns causal explanations involving mental states; it is applied to macroscopic concreta by Dorr (2001) and Merricks (2001). This is only one among a wide array of different arguments used by radicals; see n. 14 for references.
I borrow the “priority/existence” terminology from Schaffer (2007), though he confines its use to the correlative monist positions.
Schaffer characterizes the radical view as “crazy” (emphasis original) (Schaffer 2007, p. 181).
As I said in n. 12, the priority theorist assumes that explanatory priority is a partial ordering with minimal elements. On this assumption, there are some fundamental facts; so any candidate theory should be rejected if its minimal explanatory base is empty.
See, e.g., Schaffer (2009a, Sect. 1.2).
A note on terminology. I am using “explanans” to denote the fact reported by the “because” clause of a given explanatory proposal. When I want to speak of the clause itself, I will call it the “explanans clause”. Similar remarks apply to my use of “explanandum”.
What about facts which seem to involve no particular individuals? For instance,
$$ \hbox{No Nobel Laureates are Supreme Court justices} $$(1)states a fact that seems to involve no particular individuals. We can get around this worry by remembering that being such that no Nobel Laureates are Supreme Court justices is a property, and thinking of the relevant fact as the distribution of this property over a single individual, e.g., the number 0.
A word about syntax: I am not assuming that any formula of the form \(\phi(r, t_1, \ldots, t_n)\) contains r (or, for that matter, any of the t’s).
This assumption might be resisted on a variety of grounds. (For instance, it might be held that some facts concerning the existence and features of macroscopic concreta can be adequately explained only by facts involving infinitely many individuals, and that no infinitary perspicuous articulation exists.) If the assumption fails, then the argument of this paper will have to be made at the level of facts. This can be done by representing a fact (in the actual world) by a pair containing the set of individuals I it involves and the set of properties and relations P it involves. The fact represented by 〈I, P〉 is the distribution of the properties and relations in P over the individuals in I. These representations can, in effect, play the role of perspicuous articulations of explanatory proposals. This is not the place to work out the details of this alternative approach, so for present purposes I will rely on the assumption.
That is, the assignment of t to x, a 1 to y 1, etc., satisfies \(\phi(x, y_1, \ldots, y_n)\) . I assume that \(\phi(x, y_1, \ldots, y_n)\) is the result of uniform substitution of all occurrences of r with x, t 1 with y 1, etc., and that all of the variables \(x, y_1, \ldots, y_n\) are pairwise distinct.
Dancy (2004, p. 87) has argued that an explanation of the moral wrongness of an act need not imply the associated universal generalization in the way required by the determination constraint. He distinguishes between explanatory factors (“features that make an act wrong”) and background conditions (“enabling conditions”). There may be situations in which the explanatory factors are in place, but the explanandum fails, so long as those are also situations in which some background condition also fails. It is not obvious that Dancy and the priority theorists have in mind the same sort of explanation. But even if they do, the argument of the next section could be carried through. We would need to replace the statement of the determination constraint in the main text with a weaker determination relation that required only that there be no confounding case in which both the fundamental facts and the background conditions were preserved; in effect, we would need to add a conjunct specifying the background conditions to the antecedent of the associated universal generalization (and close with universal quantifiers as appropriate). And we would need to attribute to the priority theorist the idea that neither the fundamental facts nor the background conditions involve any macroscopic concreta. Thanks to Geoffrey Ferrari.
More technically, the result ϕ(x) of uniform replacement of x for r in ϕ is just ϕ itself. So, if an assignment of r to x satisfies ϕ(x), then so does an assignment of t to x.
Recall that we are assuming that r’s transparency is not reducible to the fact that some particles are arranged transparency-wise at the relevant location. This assumption is highly plausible in this case, since it’s highly plausible to think that r might have been transparent even though there was something opaque at the relevant location.
An important qualification: the argument would fail if we allowed in the explanans non-qualitative properties of the form being such that r is F. But then the evidently correct view is to hold that it’s r’s F-ness that’s doing the explanatory work. If we can’t ultimately get r out of the picture, then (EXPLANATION) fails.
It is not clear that this apparent triviality poses any problem for priority microphysicalism. Even if it does, priority microphysicalists may suggest that talk of transparency-wise arrangement is just a stand-in for some less trivial, hideously complicated specification.
Similar comments would apply if a priority monist proposed that r is transparent in virtue of the fact that the concrete cosmos has the feature being arranged transparency-wise in such-and-such a location.
See, e.g., Chalmers and Jackson (2001) for a defense of the claim that the successful explanation of various features of water in microphysical terms requires that, for subjects like us, “water is the liquid (if there is one) which falls from the sky as rain, collects in streams and rivers, etc.” is knowable a priori. The view sketched in this paragraph is the analogue of Jackson and Chalmers’s claim for successful explanation of r’s features.
Indeed, he might hold that some term we use to refer to r abbreviates or disguises the definite description “the concrete object in such-and-such a location”, so long as such claims as
$$ \hbox{ The concrete object in such-and-such a location is made of particles } x_1, x_2, \ldots $$(12)are interpreted so as to involve reference to, or at least quantification over, r. Thus, he might hold that sentences stating the facts needed to supplement the explanation are not only a priori, but also analytic.
Likewise, the a priority of mathematical facts concerning numbers does not by itself imply that Platonism about numbers offers an ontological free lunch.
She might argue, for instance, that the determination constraint sets too stringent a standard. But note that lots of plausible explanatory proposals satisfy the determination constraint. For instance, the explanation
$$ A \hbox{ and } B'\hbox{s heights average } 5'6'' \hbox{ because } A \hbox{ is }5'4'' \hbox{ and } B \hbox{ is } 5'8'' $$(13)passes easily. Any function which preserves A’s and B’s respective heights will also preserve their average height. So the determination constraint doesn’t set a standard that’s in principle impossible to meet.
For instance, she can affirm coincidents-friendly supervenience (see Zimmerman 1995, p. 88; Rea 1997), or weaker forms of global supervenience, including weak (see Stalnaker 1996, p. 227; McLaughlin 1997, p. 214; Sider 1999, p. 915) and intermediate global supervenience (see Bennett 2004a, p. 503). A comprehensive roundup of various supervenience relations can be found at McLaughlin and Bennett (2008). Thanks to an anonymous referee for suggesting this response.
See Carritt (1950). It might be objected that Carritt’s confounding case is merely possible, and that the determination constraint says only that good explanations have no actual confounding cases. I will argue in Sect. 5 below that the determination constraint should be strengthened to exclude merely possible confounding cases. For now it’s enough to note that if Carritt’s case supports the stronger principle, then it also supports the weaker principle.
See the discussion in Smart (1973).
In fact, Wasserman (2002) dubs it “the standard objection.”
Thus, Fine (2008, p. 107):
For if I use the fact that a given object ϕ’s, for example, to explain why it has the modal profile that it does, then I had better be sure that a coincident object with a different modal profile does not also satisfy ϕ.
If the determination argument is accepted, this explanatory proposal has some new problems as well, since it has other kinds of confounding cases. But the important point for present purposes is that it inherits (14)’s problem. The fact that it has more problems besides is not relevant.
Thanks to Ross Cameron, Andrew Cortens, Jonathan Schaffer, and Jason Turner for extended discussions of the merits of the determination constraint.
I am here using “actual” in the way defined in (Kaplan 1989), so that “actually ϕ” is true at a world w iff ϕ is true at the actual world.
The explanation of actuality facts can come apart from the explanation of the corresponding ordinary facts in non-actual worlds. Consider a world w in which Gore won in 2000. It is plausible to think that the explanation in w of the fact that either Bush or Gore won is that Gore won. But, in w, the fact that either Bush or Gore actually won is explained instead by Bush’s actual victory.
Note that the necessitation of actualization—i.e., the claim that it is necessary that if “x exists because ϕ” is true, then so is “x actually exists because actually ϕ”—would be implausible. My wife and I have an average height of 5’6” in virtue of the fact that she is 5’4” and I am 5’8”. But it is possible that we have had an average height of 5’6” in virtue of the fact that she is 5’9” and I 5’3”. In such a case, the claim that our heights actually average 5’6” in virtue of the fact that she is actually 5’9” and I am actually 5’3” would have been false.
Strictly speaking, the assumption needed for the argument is that there is at least one macroscopic concretum whose existence has a basis that does not entail that there are no individuals other than r, t, etc. But it is plausible that r fits the bill if anything does.
Permissiveness will be rejected by anyone who rejects the possibility of aliens (e.g., Linsky and Zalta 1994). It will also be rejected by anyone who thinks that part of the basis for r’s existence is a “that’s all” fact, to the effect that there are no individuals other than the actual individuals. (See Chalmers and Jackson 2001 for a discussion of “that’s all” clauses of this type.) So r’s existence, according to permissiveness, does not depend on the non-existence of aliens. Notice, however, that permissiveness does not rule out the claim, favored by priority monists (e.g., (Schaffer 2010)), that all actual concreta are interdependent, so the existence of r depends on the existence and features of each of the rest. It just rules out the claim that the existence of r depends on the nonexistence of something else.
Similar comments would apply to a monist explanation of r’s existence in terms of the raindrop-wise arrangement of the concrete cosmos at a certain location. This arrangement of the concrete cosmos does not on its face rule out the possibility of aliens elsewhere.
Once again we are assuming that r’s existence is not reducible to the fact that those particles are arranged transparency-wise at the relevant location.
Similarly, there is a perfectly respectable sense in which r is not “fundamental:” r’s existence is partly explicable by reference to other things. But this notion of fundamentality is useless for the existential priority theorist’s purposes, and different from the notion, defined in Sect. 1, that I have been using throughout.
Theodore Sider suggested this line of response in private correspondence. For the claim that part-whole relations are ontologically innocent, see Lewis (1991, pp. 81–87). For discussion, see Yi (1999). Ryan Wasserman (2002) argues independently that part-whole relations should be taken to be fundamental.
Jonathan Schaffer has noted in personal correspondence that a monist may respond by adopting the Cartesian view that material objects are identical to the space-time regions they occupy; the view is sometimes called supersubstantivalism. Since on this view being (exactly) located at R just is being identical to R, location turns out to be ontologically innocent: commitment to the existence of a location involves commitment to the existence of its occupant, though this implication need not be evident to us. See Schaffer (2009b) for a defense of Cartesianism. This is not the place to assess the merits of the Cartesian view. I will content myself here with two notes of caution. Note first that adopting the Cartesian view exacts an unexpected—and, to my mind, high—intuitive price, since common sense abetted by science holds that macroscopic concreta have mass, angular momentum, solidity, crystalline structure etc., while spacetime regions don’t. (Schaffer doesn’t think the price very high; see esp. (Schaffer 2009b, Sect. 4)). Second, for this reason the Cartesian view embodies an immodesty about the dictates of common sense abetted by science concerning the features of macroscopic concreta, and so comports badly with the motivations for priority theory.
I assume it is possible for theories to agree that a certain whole exists, but disagree about its parts. For instance, I might hold that you have three arms, while you quite sensibly hold that you have at most two. We agree that you exist; we disagree about the existence of certain of your parts. Other things being equal, my ontology is lusher.
Nolan (1997, pp. 335-8) provides an historical example of a scientific theory which seems to be favored over an alternative on grounds of parsimony, even though both theories assert the existence of a common store of wholes. The example involves Avogadro’s conclusion that oxygen molecules are composed of two oxygen atoms bonded together. Nolan notes that it was consistent with Avogadro’s evidence that oxygen molecules were composed of any even number of oxygen atoms. But the “O 2” hypothesis seems clearly favored over the “O 32,000” hypothesis on grounds of parsimony. See Baker (2003) for a discussion which suggests that this sort of parsimony is not a fundamental virtue of theories.
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Acknowledgements
This paper was read at the 2009 Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference and at the University of Toronto. Thanks to those audiences, and Ross Cameron, David Christensen, Andrew Cortens, Tyler Doggett, Michael Fara, Benj Hellie, Mark Moyer, Derk Pereboom, Jonathan Schaffer, Theodore Sider, Jason Turner, Jessica Wilson, Byeong-Uk Yi, and an anonymous referee for comments on earlier drafts. Thanks to Geoffrey Ferrari for discussion.
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deRosset, L. Getting priority straight. Philos Stud 149, 73–97 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9538-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9538-8